Another breach of editorial guidelines in yet more BBC promotion of ‘Breaking the Silence’

On May 5th the BBC continued its previous day’s promotion of the booklet of anonymous claims published by the political NGO ‘Breaking the Silence’ with an additional item on the BBC World Service radio programme ‘Newshour’ – available here from 36:28.

Once again, BBC editorial guidelines on impartiality were completely ignored, with no effort made to inform listeners of the group’s pre-existing “particular viewpoint”, “standpoint” or “ideology”. Presenter James Menendez introduced the segment as follows: [emphasis added]

“Now if you were listening to Newshour yesterday you’ll have heard our coverage from Israel about a report by a human rights group called ‘Breaking the Silence’ into the way some Israeli soldiers say they were instructed to behave during last year’s war against Hamas in Gaza. The group gathered the testimonies of more than sixty former and serving soldiers and what they said appears to contradict the government’s insistence that everything was done to avoid killing civilians. Well today we have a response from the Israeli government – we’ll play you that interview in a moment. First though, here’s some of that testimony from a soldier in an armoured brigade who served in the central Gaza Strip – distorted to protect his identity as well as voiced-over in English.”

Thought the BBC was subject to certain rules and protocols, as a publicly owned company? Aren’t there public advocates there to whom readers can complain about unethical and biased articles?

Do think that even more effective though is to figure out ways to publicly call out the people who write such lies and operate under such an obvious and dishonest political agenda–e.g. Times Sq. billboards calling out the NY Times bigotry against Israel.

Believe the liberal mushminds who write this claptrap about Israel are generally weak-minded Lefty “sheep” type followers, desperate for the approval of their like-mintded colleagues. Calling them out publicly as “dishonest”, “”unethical”, or even better “racist” may be the most effective in getting their collective knickers in a bunch and forcing them to re-examine what they’re doing and why.

These are people who are aghast at the slightest suggestion of insult toward violent, murderous radical Muslims, yet don’t hesitate to bash peace-loving democratic Israel. That’s the level of irrational emotionality we’re dealing with, and it deserves thoughtful counterattack if it’s ever going to stop.